Tuesday, February 28, 2012

Take a leap

Tomorrow is February 29 -- Leap Day. Every four years we get an extra day in the year. Some folks say that an extra day is a gift. It's a chance to do something or be something that you haven't found time to do or be in the usual 365 days of your trip around the sun.

I haven't been thinking this way, I confess. Getting close to the end of the month, I typically focus on the turning of the calendar as a sort of deadline. Everything I want to get done in February, I have one more day to do. Normally, I would have had to get it done today. This year, I have 24 hours more to procrastinate.

But I'm realizing that Leap Day has crept up on some of my friends and colleagues. They hadn't been counting on this day. Maybe it's a disappointing delay to the start of March. Maybe it's another day of work or school, another routine to slog through.

That makes me think that I've been underrating Leap Day. It is an extra, lagniappe, something we didn't earn but that the universe has granted to us. And it would be a shame to treat it just as more of the same.

I don't know what leap I'll make on Leap Day. Not from a plane, not through a flaming hoop. But maybe into something different in the classroom. Maybe into an honest conversation. Maybe into a new opportunity. I don't have a plan, but I'm going to be open. What about you?

1 comment:

Pilgrim said...

Good thought, an extra day, one to make use of for good, for ourselves or someone else. Don't waste the day and don't make it just another one either.